Gun-toting USA is the LEAST violent

"Historians, world leaders and assorted pundits with Yankee bashing in mind have long cultivated the idea that America is a violent place. Not so, says Gallup, which released a report yesterday revealing that the nation is not necessarily Dodge City: The impact of crime is lower in the U.S. than in Britain, and in many cases Canada. "The U.S. is often seen from abroad as a relatively lawless society, with murders and gun-related crimes aplenty. But a series of Gallup surveys in Great Britain, Canada and the U.S. suggest the image is somewhat distorted," noted David W. Moore of the Gallup News Service.

It's close, but the United States emerged as the least crime-ridden. In three polls of 3,025 persons -- about 1,000 in each country -- 32 percent of the Americans said they or someone in their households had been a victim of crime of some type within the previous year. Among Canadians, the figure was 33 percent; among Britons, 36 percent. About 71 percent of both Canadians and Britons, compared with 67 percent of Americans, said there had been more crime in their respective countries in the previous 12 months.

Gallup also asked respondents whether they had been mugged, assaulted or had property stolen, among five other unpleasant experiences. Overall, Britain proved the most dangerous, with a quarter of the respondents reporting that they or a family member had been a victim of crime. Canada and the United States were tied at 21 percent. On specific crimes, 22 percent of the British reported their home, car or property had been vandalized. The figure was 17 percent among Canadians and 15 percent among Americans."

More here:

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Is this the last word on the cartoon Jihad? If not, it should be. Bill Kristol, writing in "The Weekly Standard", says that the "anguish" caused by the Danish cartoons is phony -- and he says it very sarcastically. I have an idea that this might be the first time the cartoons have been reproduced in an American newspaper too.

I have just put up here an English translation of the latest article -- "Rejsende i islam" -- from Denmark on the cartoons issue. The article is from the now "infamous" Jyllands Posten itself. It gives a fairly detailed account of how the uproar was provoked by Denmark's Imams -- with enthusiastic help from peak Muslim bodies in Arab countries.

Islamofascists not primarily religious: "We were in a London mosque, discussing the sermons the sheik delivers at Friday congregations. I had asked why God almost never featured in (or, at best, got a cameo role) in sermons that focused almost exclusively on political issues. For the sheik, what mattered was "the sufferings of our brethren under occupation." In other words: In our Islam, we don't do God - we do Palestine, Kashmir and Iraq! Here we have a religion without a theology, a secular wolf disguised as a religious lamb. How did this neo-Islam - a political movement masquerading as religion - come into being, and how can those who know little about Islam distinguish it from the mainstream of the faith?"

A British biologist on the genetics of the male/female difference: "Some have a dream that, one fine day, there will be equal numbers of men and women in all jobs, including those in scientific research. But I think this dream is Utopian; it assumes that if all doors were opened and all discrimination ended, the different sexes would be professionally indistinguishable. The dream is sustained by a cult of political correctness that ignores the facts of life—and thrives only because the human mind likes to bury experience as it builds beliefs. Here I will argue, as others have many times before, that men and women are born different.

Whites to be a minority in London in only 4 years time: "Whites will be an ethnic minority in Britain by the end of the century. Analysis of official figures indicate that, at current fertility rates and levels of immigration, there will be more non-whites than whites by 2100. It would be the first time in history that a major indigenous population has voluntarily become a minority, rather than through war, famine or disease. Whites will be a minority in London by 2010. In the early 1950s there were only a few tens of thousands of non-whites in the UK. By 1991 that had risen to 3 million - 6 per cent of the population. The population of ethnic minorities has been growing at between 2 and 4 per cent a year. Net immigration has been running at record levels, with 185,000 newcomers last year".

Why are the Oscars and Hollywood no longer relevant?: "It is hard to come up with a more appropriate sentiment for a media and entertainment culture that ignores the murder of Theo Van Gogh and the ongoing intimidation of the Danes even as it prepares to honor the following: Moral equivalency in the war against terror (Munich); Racial tension (Crash); A deeply flawed writer (Capote); the wholesale breaking of marriage vows (Brokeback Mountain); And, let's have one more round of applause for ourselves, another retelling of the McCarthy hearings that fails to note the communist threat was real (Good Night and Good Luck)".

A French Leftist says American Leftists are empty-headed: "Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left.... But at the end of the day, my progressive friends, you may coin ideas in whichever way you like. The fact is: You do have a Right. This Right, in large part thanks to its neoconservative battalion, has brought about an ideological transformation that is both substantial and striking. And the fact is that nothing remotely like it has taken shape on the other side--to the contrary, through the looking glass of the American "left" lies a desert of sorts, a deafening silence, a cosmic ideological void... "

There is a good article here about the sad state of modern Britain. Some of the things he says are a bit over the top but most of it is pretty right -- the low standards of service and civility, the tax-driven high prices, the crowding, the Kafka-esque idea of what constitutes justice etc.

There is an interesting site called Watching America which translates foreign news about the U.S., to enable Americans (and all English speakers) to read what is being written about them and their country throughout the world. Much of the content is available nowhere else in English.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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CUBA AS A SPANISH TOURIST FOUND IT

"We arrived in Cuba without political prejudices, without any intention of setting foot in Varadero Beach, intent on seeing the country outside the much-lauded tourist areas, recalls Spanish backpacker Isane Aparicio Busto. "The blow was shocking. We left with our perceptions about the reality of the Cuban Revolution - and even with our prior social and political principles - demolished.

"All we'd heard about from many Europeans who traveled to Cuba was the rum, the happiness, the salsa, the Caribbean party atmosphere. But they hadn't mentioned the prostitution either - so we should have known they weren't totally leveling with us. We'd traveled to Mexico City and Caracas and known the horrible slums on the outskirts of these cities. But through old Havana we found ourselves walking constantly through a miasma of pestilential odors, with morose faces looking at us from decrepit doorways. My friend and I kept looking at each other asking, 'Where in the hell have all the people traveled who kept telling us poverty doesn't exist in Revolutionary Cuba?'

"We saw police everywhere. And it soon became obvious that Cubans are the victims of the 21st century's version of apartheid. Hotels for foreign tourists, stores for foreign tourists, buses for foreign tourists - a world apart that Cubans themselves are prevented by the police from entering. So we asked a few Cubans how they felt about this system.

And they all answered - while looking around - that it was fine, had to be done that way. That it was the proper way to protect tourists because many Cubans are scoundrels. So was this that proud nationalism of Revolutionary Cuba we'd heard about? The nation's impoverished people forced to treat foreigners with such meekness and deference - to grovel before them? ....

"We learned that the Cuban system is nothing but misery, moral mendacity and abuse. The system simply smothers you. And yet this revolution (with its Che Guevara banners) has sold itself to the youth of the world as a paradigm of equality, liberty and national liberation. And the leaders of the government that governs my country (Spain) simply refuse to come out and call this place a dictatorship. The Cuban people's personal aspirations seemed completely mutilated. I've never felt such anguish about a nation and a people in my life. If I were a Cuban, I'd certainly be on a raft."

More here

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The charming Hillary above. The lucky old USA could have her as its President in two year's time.

Bomb Iran! "Pentagon strategists are drawing up plans for bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks on Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Tehran's suspected efforts to develop an atomic bomb. US Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon loads and working on logistics for an operation. They are reporting to the office of the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, as the US updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions... "This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," a senior Pentagon adviser said. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."... the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by the US. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 18,000 kilograms of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri and refuel in flight."

Antisemitism in the Church of England: "The Archbishop of Canterbury has written to the Chief Rabbi regretting as "unfortunate" the Church of England's decision to review its investments in Israel. In his carefully crafted letter, Dr Rowan Williams, who voted in favour of the motion, denies that it represented a decision to disinvest at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise and a Hamas administration committed to the destruction of Israel is preparing for power. The General Synod is facing wide criticism from senior church leaders, including the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton, for voting to disinvest from Caterpillar, the US company that manufactures the tractors used in land clearance in the Occupied Territories.... In the motion, Keith Macouronne of the Guildford diocese, moved that the synod "heed the call from our sister church, the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, for morally responsible investment in the Palestinian occupied territories and, in particular, to disinvest from companies profiting from the illegal occupation, such as Caterpillar Inc, until they change their policies." The synod voted overwhelmingly in favour."

The ostriches of Australia's arty Left: "Last Sunday, as Muslims enraged by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed torched Danish diplomatic missions in Lebanon and Syria, Melbourne's artists rallied to defend free speech.... As The Age noted in a profile of comedian Dave O'Neil, another of the stars, "it's the cartoonists and comedians who are the first" to be punished when we lose the right to speak our mind. Too true. Pity now the Danish cartoonists, several now in hiding. Or their editor, now under guard, and facing an inquiry by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights.... Daring Dave knew well the risk he was running by turning up on Sunday to defend free speech, but welcomed martyrdom: "I'd love to get locked up for doing this." Dave and his artist friends weren't defending that right to free speech. No, they weren't defending that right against the very real threat of violence by Muslims. They were there to defend free speech instead from the completely imaginary threat of prosecution by the Howard Government, under sedition laws we've actually had for decades. Here again was our cultural elite at play, pretending our greatest danger comes not from radical Islam, but those protecting us from it".

Miserable Leftists again: "Is it aircraft noise, John Howard's long reign, or being overworked and underpaid that makes the so-called chardonnay socialists of Sydney's inner west the most disgruntled people in Australia? A new survey that compares the wellbeing of people in all 150 federal electorates reveals the safe Labor seat of Grayndler, covering Annandale, Leichhardt, Petersham, Newtown, Marrickville and Summer Hill, tops the national list for all-round unhappiness".

Memo for British and European libertarians: The Libertarian International Spring Convention -- one of the high points of the year for freedom lovers -- is on again. The conference will take place in Brussels on 25-26 February to coincide with the Capitalist Ball. As always, there will be exciting talks by some of the best thinkers and activists in the movement and plenty of time for socialising. Register now for a week-end of fun, friendship and freedom building. Contact Christian Michel

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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The New Slavery of American blacks

Over the last several decades, Liberals and Democrats have been pulling off the greatest scam of all time -- rewriting history itself. It's amazing how, in a free society, they have managed to hijack the past, twisting the truth by subtle manipulation. Somehow the Left has convinced a sizeable portion of Americans that lowered expectations and government coddling are their birthright by reason of their African ancestry. The new slavery is an enslavement of the mind, and its victims willingly embrace their chains.

Multiculturalists (those who preach self-segregation) have convinced many black Americans to believe they even have a different history from the rest of the country. This is a distortion of reality that has already caused much damage to our national identity. What is "black history month" supposed to represent, anyway? All those people and events singled out for special recognition as being part of "black history" were, in fact, AMERICAN events and AMERICAN people. Every American should celebrate the achievements of Americans who made a positive impact on our shared history, without dividing them according to skin color. All Americans have equal reason and right to be proud of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin as well as Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Banneker.

Race-baiting demagogues use hate and fear to keep blacks from considering candidates from any political party but Democrats when in the voting booth. Yet it was Democrats who seceded from the United States in order to preserve their "right" to own other human beings. It was Democrats who formed the Klu Klux Klan and instituted Jim Crow laws, Democrats who fought for "separate but equal" treatment of black Americans, Democrats who stood in the doorways of schools to keep blacks out and Democrats who turned fire hoses on blacks to keep them from voting. And it has been Democrats who have worked to pin all those injustices on Republicans, who have been the true "party of inclusion" all along.

Most important, it was Democrats who founded and preserved and continue to push for social programs designed to destroy autonomy and self-reliance. Lowering standards for education and employment based on race or sex sends the message "you aren't good enough to compete" to members of the "favored" group. So-called "affirmative" action programs and racial quotas only send the message, "you can't make it without help." Yet an overwhelming number of minorities vote for those who continue to push race-based condescension. How do Democrats keep fooling the people they have been oppressing into voting for them, year after year?...

Obviously, Clinton and other Democrats -- black and white -- use emotionally loaded slavery references to paint their political opponents as oppressors. They gamble on the ignorance of history that constitutes a public education these days. The fact that the Left continues to oppose true education reform -- abolishing tenure and subjecting schools to competition through vouchers -- comes as no surprise. If public schools were run more efficiently and competitively, those who attend them might learn more about American history -- the real history -- than the Left wants them to know. The chains of the new slavery are forged from ignorance, after all.

More here

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Those pesky genetics again: "Genetics can play a bigger role in determining a child's reading ability than teaching, an Australian researcher says. An international study showed some children were born with "an unfortunate deal of the genetic deck" when it comes to reading skills, said study co-author Brian Byrne, professor of psychology at the University of New England in northern NSW. No "magic bullet" of encouragement and tutoring would fully improve their reading abilities, he said. Published in the latest issue of the British-based Journal of Research in Reading, the study showed the influence of parents reading to their children diminished significantly a year or so after they started school. "The home environment doesn't leave its mark much on children as they start to go through school, which is surprising to a lot of people," Byrne said. "What seems to determine most of the differences amongst children, just in the normal school setting in terms of their reading skills, are genetics." [Anybody who knows the high correlation between IQ and early reading ability will of course not be at all surprised by the finding. Chris Brand comments on the finding too]

Bogus rights: "Do people have a right to medical treatment whether or not they can pay? What about a right to food or decent housing? Would a U.S. Supreme Court justice hold that these are rights just like those enumerated in our Bill of Rights? In order to have any hope of coherently answering these questions, we have to decide what is a right. The way our Constitution's framers used the term, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people and imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech, or freedom to travel, is something we all simultaneously possess. My right to free speech or freedom to travel imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference. In other words, my exercising my right to speech or travel requires absolutely nothing from you and in no way diminishes any of your rights."

The gas-lines in Iraq are due to price controls, nothing else: "As I say, this isn't some controversial point in theoretical economics. The failure of price controls has been documented (literally) for a period of thousands of years. For an anecdotal bit of evidence, my colleague (who worked at a gas station in the 1970s) said that the gas lines disappeared within one week of the abandonment of price controls. And when I asked what took so long, he said that the owner didn't immediately raise prices because of feared public backlash".

Lost job for backing GOP, ex-trooper says: "A former veteran state trooper from Knoxville, who has filed a federal lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Safety, told members of the state Senate's Transportation Committee yesterday he lost his job in 2004 because his family supported Republican candidates. 'The gist of my story was I was run out of the highway patrol,' former THP Lt. Charles B. Farmer said. Appearing with his lawyer, Farmer presented supporting documents to the committee which is investigating claims of cronyism in the department. Among them were contribution disclosures showing how much Farmer's wife and father-in-law had donated to Republican candidates in the 2002 statewide election."

A rather alarming post here about a cat parasite that is present in about 40% of human brains. Apparently it alters your behaviour -- including making you less able to concentrate. I think I am going to get tested for it.

It takes Ann Coulter to give us a laugh out of the cartoon uproar. I guess I must like sarcasm.

Strange Justice has just reported a disturbing case where Chicago prosecutors jailed a man they apparently knew from the beginning to be innocent. The case stank so much that the guy eventually got a damages award of $9 million!

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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SOME FEARS ARE REALISTIC AND SOME ARE CRAZY

(Post excerpted from Reliapundit)

Yesterday, Hillary "socialized medicine" Clinton charged that the GOP is playing the "fear card" - as if we shouldn't be afraid of terrorists. She said:

"... the GOP election message is: 'All we've got is fear and we're going to keep playing the fear card.'"

When she makes this charge she's as NUTTY as the LOONY-LEFTIST/DOVE comrades - who are now the base of the party, (if not the rank-and-file). I think it is REASONABLE to be afraid of the terrorists who: Fly jets into skyscrapers; bomb Israeli pizzerias and Muslim weddings and funerals; riot and burn embassies over CARTOONS; blow up bars in Bali; behead charity workers; torch train-cars of Hindu pilgrims; destroy 1000 year old Buddhist monuments and behead Thai Buddhists; murder Russian school-children; condemn rape-victims to hanging; dress up their children as genocidal suicide bombers; deny the Holocaust; bomb subways in London and trains in Madrid; murder filmmakers; put fatwas on novelists; and generally try to establish tyranny and theocratic totalitarianism through intimidation and terror.

On the other hand the things the Left is afraid of ARE TOTALLY INSANE: Man-made global warming is the biggest threat we face; we're running out of oil and other natural resources; federal bureaucrats deliberately withheld hurricane rescue services to New Orleanians; the NSA is illegally intercepting all of everyone's international phone calls - (all 200+ BILLION yearly minutes worth!); the FBI is intimidating librarians; Afghanistan was going to be a QUAGMIRE - we weren't supposed to defeat the Afghans since the USSR couldn't; we weren't going to be able to defeat Saddam - because the strategy was wrong - we went in too fast and our supply lines were too strung out; pharmaceutical companies, Wal Mart and the oil companies are ripping us off BIGTIME; off-shore oil-drilling and oil-drilling in ANWR is desecrating the environment; the Bush Tax Cuts will destroy our economy - (Bush has the worst jobs record since Hoover - it's the worst economy since Hoover); abortion will become illegal and unconstitutional if you vote GOP; and the GOP will take away your right to have a living-will (even though ALL the Bush's have one!); Bush and the GOP are trying make America into an Iranian religious state.

The list of unreasonable fear-mongering by the Left goes back in time too. Remember these "golden oldies": Reagan would start WW3; there will be mass global starvation; we're going to run out of oil; NAFTA will ruin our economy; Bobby Kennedy's ol' boss Joe McCarthy was evil personified and Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were innocent; "ending welfare as we know it" will put millions of people on the streets; the Reagan tax cuts will ruin the economy.

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ELSEWHERE

Reagan, Reaganomics and the future: "Ronald Reagan, it has been said, was elected on six words: Strong defense, smaller government, less regulation. With that, came a moral compass, happy nature, septuagenarian's sure stride and an unwavering will to make the world safer for freedom and America's destiny. As a party, we would do well to reset our bearings by his North Star. If we allow ourselves to forget, we will drift into dangerous waters. House Republicans have just elected John Boehner, from Ohio's 8th District, as their new majority leader. He will now be No. 2, under the seasoned leadership of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. The new team offers a new start. That said, 2006 be a decisive election year, and 2008 will be upon us before we know it. It is time to throw open the barn doors and take a hard look inside. Today, the Republican Party inherits the legacy of Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln."

The huge ripoff of middle-class welfare: "Ronald Reagan memorably complained about "welfare queens," but he never told us that the biggest welfare queens are the already wealthy. Their lobbyists fawn over politicians, giving them little bits of money -- campaign contributions, plane trips, dinners, golf outings -- in exchange for huge chunks of taxpayers' money. Millionaires who own your favorite sports teams get subsidies, as do millionaire farmers, corporations, and well-connected plutocrats of every variety. Even successful, wealthy TV journalists."

Doubling jail time would cut burglary: "Giving thieves longer jail sentences would dramatically reduce the crime rate, says new research that has found the average burglar commits 152 robberies in four years. The study by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics found increasing the average prison sentence for burglary from one to two years could prevent up to 10,000 burglaries each year in NSW, a reduction of 8percentage points. And doubling the percentage of burglars who went to jail when convicted -- from 44per cent to 88per cent -- could prevent 14,000 burglaries a year in NSW. But such a move would be expensive. Reducing the burglary rate by 10per cent would mean 34per cent more burglars in jail at any one time, with an extra cost of $26million a year. Spending $26million on prevention could result in a saving of $156 million -- the cost in insurance claims".

Mexican incursions inflame border situation: "Armed men in Mexican military uniforms have illegally crossed into the United States to provide cover for drug smugglers, and have fired upon U.S. Border Patrol agents on several occasions, a congressional panel was told Tuesday. Border Patrol Union President T.J. Bonner detailed three incidents since 2000 in which U.S. agents were chased and fired upon by what he characterized as Mexican soldiers operating inside U.S. borders. Bonner testified before the House Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee on Tuesday."

How to support the troops: " "The last time 1st Lt. William 'Eddie' Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood. A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook's right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again. But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago. He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle. He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months."

Ed Driscoll seems to be a guru on many things. In a recent post he even gets it spot-on about Hitler being a Leftist. I have added him to my blogroll.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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THE PERILS (AND OCCASIONAL REWARDS) OF OBJECTIVITY

It is always amazing to libertarians when we are referred to by the Left as "extreme Right" or even "Nazis". Libertarians tend to see ALL governments as fascist and that is exactly what we oppose. So to be accused of believing in what you spend most of your time arguing against is pretty weird. But to the simple minds of the Left, anyone they do not like is a "Fascist", of course. But libertarians often get conservatives offside too -- mainly because we believe morality is a personal matter that the government should concern itself with only when a practice clearly attacks the liberties of others. So, as a libertarian, I am used to being a defender of unpopular views.

And it is a good thing that I am. Because as well as being a defender of liberty, I am pernicious in another way: I am also a defender of truth -- historical truth in particular. And THAT can annoy people from both sides of the aisle too. As frequent readers of this blog know well, the history of the Hitler era in particular has interested me for many years -- mainly because the distortions about that era that we are generally fed as history are so unbelievably gross. What I try to do is to UNDERSTAND Nazism as it really was. Merely to condemn it is puerile in my view. And in my big article on Nazism, I do point out the reasons why Nazism was attractive to prewar Germans. And I also, of course, point out that in its day, Nazism was fairly mainstream Leftism. Racism, eugenics and antisemitism were common beliefs among Leftists worldwide in the prewar era.

And my identifying Nazism as socialist (which Hitler himself did) does get me furious emails from Leftists at times. They seem to think that they can counter my careful documentation of everything I say merely by making abusive assertions. The idea that Nazism was Leftist is so foreign to them that evidence just does not matter. So it was interesting that I received yesterday an email from a real Fascist -- evidently a leader of a Norwegian Fascist group. So what did he have to say about my writings on Fascism? Did he furiously reject them as being all wrong? Not at all! He loved them! He thought that I summarized well what Fascism was all about. So modern-day Leftists -- who generally know next to nothing about ANYTHING in history -- think I am all wrong but people who, as practitioners of it, certainly DO know what Fascism is all about, think I am spot-on. I think that is not a bad endorsement of my endeavours to present the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Even though I am extremely unsympathetic to Fascism, I achieve enough objectivity about it for those so inclined to recognize the attractive side of it in my writings.

And here is where I am going to make a lot of people critical of me: I feel that it is important to note that Hitler and Mussolini were extremely POPULAR Leftists. Fascism is probably the most attractive form of Leftism that has ever been invented. Mussolini was outspokely admired in his day by such diverse figures as Winston Churchill and Frankin Delano Roosevelt and Hitler was really LOVED by many Germans. Modern-day Leftists tend to HATE their fellow-citizens. Hitler loved his fellow Germans and they loved him back. We should be very glad that modern-day Leftists have been so thick as not to learn what they could from history. If they had emulated Hitler instead of Stalin, the whole world would now be completely under their domination. I was actually reluctant to say that -- in case Leftists learn from it. But they are so rigid in their ideas that I think there is little fear of that. If you want to see in full WHY Hitler and Mussolini were so popular, it is all in my articles here and here.

And that brings me to my final point here and the one that will get outraged screeches aimed at me: I think it is always important to look at both sides of every question and that includes looking at the Nazi viewpoint. And there is a modern-day site here that does defend the Nazi viewpoint in a careful way. I certainly do not at all agree with everything on the site but it does nonetheless serve to highlight some of the little-known elements of history that led to the final catastrophe (or catastrophes) of WWII. For instance, in an article that has recently attracted a lot of justified criticism, it points out that Jews around the world were well aware of the dangers Hitler posed and in the mid-30s mounted a big campaign to boycott German goods etc. The article's claim that Hitler was before that campaign not antisemitic is of course absurd -- as every reader of Mein Kampf will know -- but it is clear that the campaign achieved only one significant thing: It thoroughly confirmed Hitler's claim of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy against him and against Germany. It helped to make Hitler seem reasonable to other Germans. And partly for that reason, many German Jews opposed the campaign.

Sadly, German Jews had no good options at that time other than to emigrate. And even that was not much of an option. In 1939, a German ocean liner, the SS St. Louis, with 1,000 Jewish refugees aboard, got so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami -- but that great Leftist hero, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, would not let them land. They returned to Germany to be exterminated. Leftist "compassion" at work all-round there.

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Why the Arab world is so backward: "The barrier to better Arab performance is not a lack of resources, concludes the report, but the lamentable shortage of three essentials: freedom, knowledge and womanpower. Not having enough of these amounts to what the authors call the region's three "deficits". It is these deficits, they argue, that hold the frustrated Arabs back from reaching their potential-and allow the rest of the world both to despise and to fear a deadly combination of wealth and backwardness.... Adult illiteracy rates have declined but are still very high: 65m adults are illiterate, almost two-thirds of them women. Some 10m children still have no schooling at all"

In case you have not seen it already, there is a blog post here pointing out that the "offensive" cartoons of Mohammed were republished in an Egyptian newspaper way back in October 2005 with not a hint of protest. So the uproar now is definitely orchestrated rather than being a genuine burst of outrage. The author of the blog appears to be a pro-Western Arab.

Unending British bureaucratic bungling: "The Child Support Agency, 3 billion pounds in debt and lambasted as the worst body of its sort in the developed world, will be redesigned from scratch, the Government said today. After 12 years of backlogs and a costly failure to implement a new computerised system, Mr Hutton said the CSA had managed to collect 4.5 billion pounds in support payments, but had cost 3 billion pounds to run and was staggering under the weight of 3 billion pounds in debt. The agency currently has a backlog of more than 300,000 cases and misses its target of 42 days to process a case by more than a year. For every pound collected from absent parents, the CSA spends 1.85 pounds. David Laws, the Liberal Democrats Work and Pensions Spokesman, said the CSA was "the worst-performing child support agency in the developed world" and that the announcement of yet another review would frustrate single parents waiting for payments."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

Muslim goons silence Danish journos while in Australia Premier Bracks helps Muslim bigots persecute Christians: If the Prime Minister of Denmark has the guts to stand up and defend free speech, why can't Liberal politicians do likewise and challenge Bracks' Muslim blasphemy laws and the Islamo-fascists behind them?
Incompetent economic commentator calls President Bush a dolt: The Bush-hating Kaletsky is not a good economist. Moreover, I would go so far as to call him a dolt
Paul Krugman's lousy economic thinking: Krugman and his ilk will continue to do all they can to poison the economic waters, such is their pathological hatred of Bush
How a Murdoch reporter swallowed communist Vietnamese anti-American agitprop: The Bush-hating Nason's mendacious reporting from the US is not, I regret to say, an aberration but part of a pattern of ideologically motivated deceit
A lying journalist v. President Bush: There is no other way of putting it: the Bush-hating Eccleston is a vicious lying bigot who ought to be fired
Why Democrats hate patriotism : Democrats are not only not patriotic, they despise and fear anyone who is
Victory of Hamas: not a bad thing after all: Hamas has no choice but to recognize Israel and renounce violence. If they don't, they will starve and will be removed by those who voted for them
Ask the Children why soldiers are dying. They understand: Over a year ago a brave young soldier was riding in a tank 20 miles somewhere outside Mosul, Iraq. While traveling down the well known course, a bomb went off under his vehicle -- changing his life forever
Eminent Domain. Peace for Neubert Purser?: Eminent Domain effectively allows the government to 'condemn' your land and take it from you and this can include your home as well state at the expense of consumers

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RECENTLY POSTED ON ICJS

Justifying Zionicide: The holocaust and the UN
Replacing Judaism
Too much tolerance
Saving Spielberg
Who's who in Hamas
Islamism's willing executioners
Munich ignores German blunders
Danish paper apologises to Muslims

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Of course! The cartoon riots are all GWB's fault! "But eventually the focus of this conflict will shift back to the United States, the undisputed leader of "the West." With all his talk of freedom as a universal right, President Bush pretends to understand that U.S. support of corrupt dictatorships in places such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan contributes to the feeling that Muslims are under attack and helps give strength to fundamentalism and jihad."

Under-represented libertarians: According to the Cato Institute's David Boaz in the Wall Street Journal recently, Gallup polls show that around 20% of the US population are neither liberal nor conservative but libertarian - opposing the use of government either to "promote traditional values" or to "do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses." So where, he asks, are the libertarians in politics and the media? With big-government conservatives spending money like Imelda Marcos in a shoe store, there seems to be nobody to represent the country's libertarians. The Democrats vote against tax cuts and Social Security privatization. The Republicans want to ban abortion and gay partnerships. Media debate divides simply into either pro-Bush or (mostly) anti-Bush. What's a libertarian to do? Along with Gallup, exit polls suggest that Boaz is right, and that there are large numbers of unrepresented Americans who just hate government pushing them around. About 17m of those who voted for John Kerry did not think the government should do more to solve the country's problems. And 28m Bush voters support either gay marriage or civil unions. That's 45m people with broadly libertarian views. But, says Boaz, you'd never know it from watching TV, or listening to elected politicians".

While Ford and GM are going broke: "Shares of Toyota Motor Corp., the world's largest automaker by market value, may rise after the company yesterday said it expects to post another year of record earnings for the year ending in March. Shares of Toyota, which have gained 61 percent in the last 12 months, rose 6.7 percent to 6.530 yen in Tokyo yesterday. This year, profit may exceed last year's 1.17 trillion yen ($9.9 billion) and sales my also beat 18.55 trillion yen, Toyota Senior Managing Director Takeshi Suzuki said yesterday. The yen's weakness inflated the value of overseas sales, giving Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe funds for a record 1.4 trillion yen investment in new factories this year. The expansion may help the company overtake General Motors Corp., which is cutting jobs and shutting plants to stem losses. ``The automaker is expanding production to meet a strong demand and we can expect the company to have another good year of earnings,'' said Teruhisa Ishikawa, a manager at Mizuho Investors Securities Co. in Tokyo. ``The earnings figures were good.'' Toyota, the world's second-biggest automaker, yesterday said third-quarter profit rose 34 percent to a record 397.6 billion yen, buoyed by a weaker yen and increased sales of fuel-efficient cars in the U.S. and Asia. Sales gained 15 percent in the quarter to 5.3 trillion yen.

EU ignores world body: "The European Union put a brave face today on a WTO ruling that it had imposed unfair restrictions on genetically modified crops, insisting there is no need to change its current GM approval system. The bloc's executive arm said that since the United States along with Argentina and Canada filed the case in 2003, the EU had changed the way it approved GM foods for market and therefore the ruling was already dated. "For the moment, we see no consequences for our legislation which we consider to be toughest in the world," European Commission spokeswoman for environment issues Barbara Helfferich said. A WTO dispute settlement panel backed a complaint which charged that a European moratorium on imports of GMOs, in place since 1998, reflected business protectionism rather than concerns about the health of consumers or the environment, according to diplomats in Geneva."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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ON APATHY

I was at university during the Vietnam war and the University of Queensland was as frantically antiwar as most universities were at that time. Like the USA, Australia both had conscription and had troops in Vietnam -- and the young treasures at university definitely did not want to get shot at. In such a climate, to be vocally pro-war was almost impossible (though I was) but one group of dissenters got around that by forming what they called "The Student Apathy Group" (SAG). Apathy was almost the only respectable way of dissenting from the prevalent Leftist line. Also studying at the time was a very good humoured Australian Army Major named Imre George Apathy -- of Hungarian origin and universally known as "Bob". When SAG heard that there was a real-life student Apathy on campus, they promptly made him their patron!

So I think it is clear that apathy can be useful at times. And it is in fact very prevalent. I was at a birthday BBQ recently with a small group of perfectly decent ordinary Australians where I supplied the sausages. At one point I said: "And you will be pleased to know that the sausages are halal" I got exactly the response I expected -- total incomprehension. I might as well have said that the sausages were "haram" (forbidden). It was just another indication that those of us who blog, read blogs or just keep up with current events are in fact well out of the mainstream. The average person is interested only in events that affect him or her directly and personally.

And I think that is a good thing. Australia has benefited greatly from economically rational economic policies introduced by both major political parties so Australians can afford to be apathetic. Whichever party gains power will almost certainly do a better job of managing the economy than do most of the world's governments. But apathy has its price. The U.S. economy is not as well managed as the Australian one -- witness the vast U.S. agricultural subsidies -- but Americans have a somewhat higher standard of living than Australians because they are so highly motivated and therefore work harder. By contrast, Australians would rather go to the beach most of the time. And they often do.

Footnote:

Yes. I did join the Australian Army (I became a sergeant) and I did volunteer for service in Vietnam. Incomprehensible, I know. Definitely not apathetic.

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ELSEWHERE

Iran has said that it going to commission a series of cartoons mocking Jews and the holocaust to see if the West reacts to those cartoons in the same way that it has acted about the cartoons of Mohammed. They needn't bother. The Western Left have been doing the same for a long time -- as we see here. And the reaction to the antisemitic Leftist cartoons? "Perfectly OK. Old boy" (To paraphrase). In fact, one such cartoon "was awarded first prize as the best political cartoon of the year" (See here).

Perhaps I have a weird sense of humour but I find the frantically hate-filled Leftist site "Try Works" (widely believed to be written by Ward Churchill) to be quite amusing. Every word on it seems to be written with bulging-eyed fury. And that does touch my sense of the ridiculous. In a recent post they have even called me a Nazi! How original! LOL! But he did reproduce in full the post of mine that he took exception to so I guess I should thank him for exposing my thoughts to an audience that would not normally see them! The "Tryworks" post was in fact picked up by another Leftist site called -- would you believe it? -- Angry Indian! So I guess I have given quite a few Leftists a little thrill of self-righteousness. Since they need that so badly, who am I to begrudge it to them? I note, however, that Churchill and his ilk do not appear to have commented on this post. Perhaps we should feel sorry for the poor old angry Leftists. After all: "Angry people are more likely to sustain injuries serious enough to require emergency medical care"

Good to see that black blogress, La Shawn Barber has taken a fair-minded look at the correlations between race and IQ. She clearly accepts that there ARE important and inherited difference between blacks and whites ON AVERAGE. And she points out that this is already a major public policy issue.

Incitement to violence finally earns a conviction: "Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been sentenced to seven years in prison after being found guilty of incitement of racial hatred and soliciting murder. Sentencing the hook-handed, one-eyed imam at London's Old Bailey court, Judge Anthony Hughes said Hamza used his authority to encourage his audiences that killing was a religious duty. I do not make the mistake of thinking that you represent Islamic thinking generally," he added, warning that Hamza could face further charges in relation to US claims that he supported an alleged terrorist camp in the Pacific north-west. He could also face losing his British passport, Hughes said, stating that Hamza's words, and their potential spread through followers, made him a "real danger" to the lives of innocent people around the world.

Last resort against Iran looming: "It is the option of last resort with consequences too hideous to contemplate. And yet, with diplomacy nearly exhausted, the use of military force to destroy Iran's nuclear programme is being actively considered by those grappling with one of the world's most pressing security problems. For five years the West has used every diplomatic device at its disposal to entice Iran into complying with strict conditions that would prevent its nuclear programme being diverted to produce an atomic bomb. Those efforts, however, are now faltering. US leaders are openly discussing the looming conflict. A recent poll showed that 57 per cent of Americans favoured military intervention to stop Iran building a bomb. Experts agree that America has the military capability to destroy Iran's dozen known atomic sites. US forces virtually surround Iran with military air bases to the west in Afghanistan, to the east in Iraq, Turkey and Qatar and the south in Oman and Diego Garcia. The US Navy also has a carrier group in the Gulf, armed with attack aircraft and Tomahawk cruise missiles. B2 stealth bombers flying from mainland America could also be used".

What an imbecile! "A Republican lawmaker who once described Washington's combative U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, as everything a diplomat should not be, had some kind words for him while visiting U.N. headquarters on Monday. "I spend a lot of time with John on the phone. I think he is really working very constructively to move forward," said Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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THE CARTOONS. A SELECTION FROM THE MANY POINTS BEING MADE:

The man who orchestrated the anti-Denmark uprising was a Danish Imam: "Abu Laban's celebrated celeb status is about history in Denmark. Danes have no more patience for those who preach love in one language and war in another, those who publicly play the role of the victim, demand tolerance and then secretly incite hatred. While much of Europe has been asleep at the wheel, oblivious to the monumental threat radical Islam poses to its future, at least one country is increasingly awake. Denmark's first battle is domestic, unmasking the enemy's fifth column inside its borders".

As already pointed out on this blog, Mohammed actually appears quite commonly in Islamic art and has also appeared widely in international cartoons, including America's "South Park", for some time. Indeed there have even uncomplimentary ones of 'Islamic' origin. So why all the fuss now? Daily Kos has an interesting suggestion: Saudi Arabia's mismanagement of the Hajj which left hundreds dead and the Saudi rulers thus needing to deflect criticism. Denmark as a remote small target with little strategic or economic leverage over the Saudis was a suitable scapegoat. Hence the call from the Saudis to boycott Danish exports (which the Saudis hardly buy in any case).

Denmark's role in pioneering and promoting "alternative" energy technology would for conspiracy theorists be an additional motive for Saudi bullying (lots of Danish electricity demand is supplied by wind energy).

Note that South Park has portrayed Mohammed in it's episode Super Best Friends recently. South Park has been accused of defiling the "virgin" Mary as recently as December 2005 but there have been no burnings of US embassies by outraged Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans.

British police need political authorization to act against Muslim lawbreakers: "Protesters who carried placards at the weekend demonstrations in London calling for the beheading of people who insulted Islam, and who shouted terrorist slogans, could be prosecuted for incitement to murder, government sources said yesterday. Charles Clarke, Downing Street and other ministers sent out strong signals to the police and prosecuting authorities to take appropriate action against the demonstrators. Ministers and opposition politicians refrained from joining criticism of the police for failing to arrest people on the spot in the protests at the Danish cartoons. But, while insisting that they would not interfere with the operational independence of the police, they left the authorities in no doubt that they expected action to be taken".

Keith Burgess Jackson comments on Childish Leftists : "I got to wondering what leftist intellectuals think about the violence being perpetrated by Muslims in various parts of the world. After all, leftists profess to care about people. Won't they condemn it in no uncertain terms? Brian Leiter has five guest-bloggers, any one of whom could post something about the violence. Alas, nobody has. William Edmundson, Ph.D., J.D., has a really neat post about the Super Bowl and beer. I went to Crooked Timber. I found only one post, and I don't know what to make of it. I read the hundred or so comments. Perhaps I'm not getting it, but most of the commenters seem to think the violence is funny. Either that or they're using humor to evade responsibility. Many leftists don't know what to make of the Muslim violence. To condemn it would be to take a stand, and that seems so, well, grown-up and old-fashioned. The violence can't be blamed on President Bush, or you can be sure the Left would be all over this issue. Leftists hate Christianity, since they view it as an oppressor religion, but they refuse to say anything even remotely critical about Islam or Muslims, perhaps because that would make them (the critics) seem imperialistic. Better to joke about the violence. Better to retreat into irony and sarcasm. To take a stand would require careful thought and moral backbone, neither of which is conspicuous by its presence among leftists.

Tom Gross has a good selection of defamatory cartoons about Jews and Christians from the Arab world. But I guess "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is not part of their religion.

Newslinker asks: Why isn't anyone talking about what Islamists did to images of Budda back in 2001? No Buddhists firebombed or beheaded people in retaliation of the desecration of images of their guru? FLASHBACK from March 2001: "Ignoring an international outcry, Afghanistan's puritanical Taliban Islamic militia began demolishing statues across the country on Thursday, including two towering ancient stone Buddhas".

Chris Brand also has a summary of the cartoon upheavals, mainly from a British viewpoint.

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U.S. roads more dangerous than Afghanistan: "More U.S. troops have died in off-duty motorcycle accidents since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, than have been killed in combat in Afghanistan over that same time, according to safety records. Military commanders in North Carolina say the deaths are largely the result of boredom, bonus pay, and adrenalin to burn off after troops return from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 350 troops have died on bikes since the 2001 terrorist attacks. That's compared to 259 killed while serving in Afghanistan".

Memri has the transcript of an intervierw with Camelia Sadat, daughter of the late Egyptian President, in which she tells of forced marriage at the age of 12 to an abusive husband. And Sadat was generally held to be an enlightened and moderate Muslim. Not to his own daughter, he wasn't.

Surprise, surprise! "At least $US700 million in funds from the Palestinian Authority's coffers have been squandered or stolen by officials over the past few years, an internal investigation revealed yesterday. Palestinian Attorney-General Ahmed al-Moghani cited 50 cases of "financial and administrative corruption" and said 25 officials had been arrested so far. He said 10 officials had fled abroad but the authority was seeking their extradition. "The amount of money that was squandered and stolen is more than $US700 million," Mr Moghani told reporters. "Some of these millions were transferred into personal accounts here and abroad".

I have just done an update to my Picture page -- adding quite a few new pictures. There is even a picture there for steam buffs! All the links to other galleries on the site are also now working.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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MUSLIM DOUBLE STANDARDS



Fox News Channel "Special Report" anchorman Brit Hume said Sunday that violent demonstrations by radical Muslims protesting five-month-old cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed betray a "howling double standard." "This is really a disgrace," Hume told the panel on "Fox News Sunday." "And it is a disgrace because of the obvious, howling double standard involved here." "What is striking about this is what offends these Muslims who are protesting and these imams," Hume complained. "Does the slaughter of innocent people in many parts of the world in the name of Allah offend them? Is that a sacrilege worthy of protest? "No, not in the least," he said.

Hume noted that there has also been no outrage on the Arab street over "the kinds of slurs against Christians and against the Jewish faith that are regularly spread abroad in the Arab world by the mass media and by many of these imams themselves."

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Zombietime points out that there have in fact been many pictorial representations of Mohammed in the past that have not drawn protests. He reproduces many of them.

Spineless Europeans: "EU officials said Friday that they had no plans to halt aid to Palestinians despite threats by gunmen to the bloc's headquarters in Gaza. European parliamentarians have also voted to keep aid going. On Thursday, about a dozen gunmen connected to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party surrounded the EU Commission's office in Gaza City. They demanded that the governments of Denmark, France, Germany and Norway apologize for cartoons of Mohammed published in newspapers in those countries. Armed Palestinians also threatened a "tough response" for further reprints of the cartoons in front of the French cultural center. Despite the threats, EU officials said they were not going to suspend aid -- at least for now. "If the situation gets more complicated then obviously for us it will not be easy to deal with it," European Commission spokeswoman Emma Udwin said

ACLU summarized: "Instead of defending our liberties, this radical organization threatens our freedom in courtrooms around the country. The ACLU will not defend the rights of the unborn child, opting instead to sacrifice babies on the altar of something called "choice." The ACLU is, in fact, one of the most vocal proponents of all forms of abortion. If a public high school student wants to hold a prayer meeting at school, the ACLU is the first in line trying to sabotage the project. In the vocabulary of the ACLU, there is no such thing as religious liberty. Instead, the organization routinely fights for freedom FROM religion-not freedom to exercise religion. If a mayor wants to place a Christmas display on the grounds of City Hall, the ACLU is at the ready to put a stop to it. If a judge wants to post the Ten Commandments in the courthouse, the ACLU is prepared to fight the idea-all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The method in Leftist unreason: "there is a method in the madness of the Left. There has always been a method in it. The Left is not engaged in an "argument," it is engaged in a revolution in the name of all that is just and right and good. Therefore, it does not aim to out-argue its opponents, but to shame them, to drive them from the field in ignominy, to make them figures of ridicule, moral indignation, and revulsion.... watch Ted Kennedy in action. His attacks on Judge Alito, like his earlier attacks on Judge Bork, were not intended as arguments, and certainly showed little regard for fact. They were all bluster, moral indignation, character assassination, ridicule, ostracism. If words could kill, his were the words of an assassin. This leftist tactic has worked for over one hundred years, because there are not many people who can stand unafraid before it. Most do not want to attract attention to themselves, lest its indignation and vituperation and moral ridicule be turned loose upon them. The tirades in which these words are launched-Senator Kennedy's neck muscles bulge, his flesh turns bright red, his voice rises ever higher so as to forbid anybody-anybody-from interrupting him-are meant to enforce acquiescence, not consent. They are meant to intimidate, not to present an argument."

There is a very well-informed article here about the effects of minimum wage legislation. Excerpt: "Only three things can happen in a business when the government forces wages up. Employers can reduce their costs, most likely by laying off workers or letting some go through attrition. They can raise prices to recoup the higher cost of labor. Or they can settle for lower profits. Advocates of raising the minimum wage have focused lately on studies showing little or no adverse effect on employment from the mandate. But far less attention has been paid to findings that price increases, at least in the short term, may be the most likely reaction of employers. And price increases have to be paid by someone.... The bottom line: A policy most people think is a slam-dunk to help the poor actually only benefits about one-fourth of poor families while hurting the rest and helping almost as many affluent families as it does the poor".

California Democrats love Communist Cuba: "Assemblywoman Nicole Parra and her father traveled to Cuba in early December on what has reportedly become an annual event organized by one of California's most powerful lobbyists and political fundraisers. Parra, D-Hanford, and other participants said the trip was arranged by Darius Anderson, founder of one of Sacramento's premiere lobbying firms and a top fundraiser for former Gov. Gray Davis. Since travel to communist Cuba is generally prohibited except under a license from the U.S. government, Anderson's repeated trips there with lawmakers, business people and others raise a number of questions.... The San Francisco Chronicle reported last December that the Anderson trips to Cuba have become an annual affair. Parra said she and her father, former Kern County Supervisor Pete Parra, paid for the trip, about $3,000 each plus airfare to Miami, out of personal funds. The trip was a personal, educational vacation, Nicole Parra said. At least one other lawmaker who attended, Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City, said she used campaign funds, according to the Palm Springs Desert Sun. Four other Assembly members were among the 100 people on the five-day trip, including the powerful speaker of the Assembly, Fabian Nunez, said Nunez spokesman Steven Maviglio."

Sense from Germany: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel compared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Adolf Hitler as Tehran vowed to resume the enrichment of uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons. Amid growing fears that the Iranians are intent on acquiring an "Islamic bomb", Ms Merkel warned that the world must not repeat the mistakes it made in appeasing the Nazis".

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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A DAY TO BE REMEMBERED:



Today is the birthday of Ronald Wilson Reagan. A wonderful man. There will never be another like him. He is my only hero and I know I am one of millions in missing him.

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HOW BRITISH!

I received the following email from my old friend, Rafe Champion, who is mostly to be found blogging at Catallaxy these days.

"In case anyone is wondering about the cartoons that detonated the current agitation, here is a copy from a British libertarian/anarchist site. They were sourced from a Danish site that has been down since 31 Jan. In my view it is generally undesirable and bad manners to lampoon other people's religions, although I can't be sure where good humoured satire stops and offensive lampooning starts. However you can tell when it has gone too far and this means that people who produce works of art like the Piss Christ should be subjected to polite but firm criticism from all fair-minded and reasonable people who think that art and civility matter. There is no place for legislation or violence in response to lapses in taste. As Hayek pointed out, in a free society we have to put up with a lot of things that we don't like."

I must confess to being amused. I think that Rafe must be, like me, the product of a British culture that is now almost dead in Britain itself. What true Muslim who has ever existed would see "polite but firm criticism" as an appropriate response to mockery of their prophet?

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ELSEWHERE

Chronic stupidity at the Defense Dept.: "At a time when our Army and Marines bear by far the heaviest load of our nation's security burdens, OSD proposes reducing the number of soldiers to free up funds for wasteful Cold-War-era weapons systems. Our ground forces are being driven hard, with many soldiers and Marines already on their third assignments to Iraq or Afghanistan. Overwhelmingly, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps do the bleeding and dying. And even as we're able to gradually reduce our troop levels in Iraq, the need for robust land forces to cope with other looming crises is indisputable. Yet, instead of beefing up the forces that do the actual fighting, the Pentagon self-justification process known as the "Quadrennial Defense Review," or QDR, is about to call for increasing the buy of the F/A-22, a pointless air-to-air fighter with a $280-million-per-copy price tag, while acquiring high-tech destroyers designed to defeat a vanished Soviet navy.... OSD wants a force that's all fantasy and no fight, a military designed to cope with a threat that might come someday - if we wish hard enough - but that ignores the gory reality our soldiers and Marines are facing every day right now"

Rabbi Aryeh Spero: "There is a madness in today's liberal thinking. It insists on policies that tie our hands to defend ourselves while giving free reign to the jihadists intent on killing us. It is dangerous because it is becoming the law, and thinking, of the land, and the Western world. Never before in history has a country and civilization made it impossible to defend itself from its enemies. Never before in history have the elites running a society done as much to cause national suicide..... Basically, the Left, i.e., the enemies of America living within America, have made it impossible to fight jihadism. We can't kill the enemy, we can't spy on the enemy, we can't interrogate the enemy, we can't find the enemy guilty. The terrorist in the eyes of the liberal is more sacred than the President of the United States. In effect, liberalism has tied us up so -- emotionally, legally, political-correctly -- that we are now defenseless: made so not by the enemy but by ourselves, self-induced. This is madness. We will be murdered by outsiders because those within are opting for suicide. Our military and domestic police strength is meaningless if tied up in legalisms forbidding its use. As to the enemy, he can do what he wants, and cannot be criticized for it."

Bigmouth Leftist failure tells Blair what to do: "Lord Kinnock, the former Labour party leader, has privately advised Tony Blair to fix a date to leave Downing Street, as the prime minister prepares for a climbdown on his flagship education reforms. The Labour peer believes that "clock is ticking" on Blair's reign and that there is "nothing left for him to achieve". Kinnock gave his advice to Blair at a private meeting before Christmas, but he refused to comment publicly yesterday".

UK proposal to police Web hits hurdles : "Another government tech policy has been defeated by the British House of Lords, with members rejecting plans to give police more power over terrorism-related content on Web sites. The government's original plans would have allowed police to act after deciding information on the Internet is related to terrorism. But this was changed by the House of Lords so that police would have to ask judges before telling Internet service providers to remove Web pages, according to the BBC. The government was defeated by 148-147 vote. The bill received a third reading and will now return to the House of Commons."

Exposing pseudo-sophisticated opposition to the war for what it is: "For Stein to advocate opposition to American soldiers while nonchalantly admitting his own lack of service is a remarkable display of arrogance -- a 'wussy' thing to do, one might say. To one who comes from similar circumstances as Stein, but has chosen to serve his country, the thought of such a spineless argument provokes disgust. ... Stein is one of many pseudo-intellectuals who feel that their education and socio-economic status excuse them of the responsibility to serve. They act as if they were entitled to freedom's blessings, just in order to indulge themselves."

Cable rate increases: "We should have learned by now that government is a terrible steward of competition. Its natural impulse is to regulate or manage, when the best it could do is get out of the way. This is especially true when rapid technological change disrupts an industrial sector, like telecommunications, that for decades operated under a restrictive regulatory regime based on the premise all we needed was one provider. With deployment of high-speed fiber optic networks, broadband providers, phone companies and even power companies are poised to enter the local video market, finally offering American families a competitive alternative that will drive innovation in the industry and deliver lower prices. The problem is outdated rules governing the industry prevent cable competition."

The story of how venal American politicians are now doing their best to STOP the conversion of Vietnam to capitalism is here. Excerpt: "Nativists argue that we should protect the catfish farmers in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana from their Vietnamese competitors for the simple reason that they're Americans, even if it means denying consumers safer, cheaper, better-tasting catfish. But because of the players involved, the catfish wars aptly illustrate the absurdity of nativist thinking. Thirty years after the last U.S. troops died in Vietnam, that country is inching its way toward capitalism. With petty politics and protectionist trade barriers, it's now the U.S. government that's standing in its way".

If you have not yet seen the comic-book version of the Koran, it's time you did!

On Australian Politics I have more on the recent stabbings of beachgoing Anglo-Australians by Lebanese Muslims

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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